


treasure maps fallen trees

by andymcnope



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 16:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3177097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andymcnope/pseuds/andymcnope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root doesn’t know if there’s a word for the person who puts the pin back in the grenade you’re holding without saying a single word. (Or: Five Times Reese Woke Root Up)</p>
            </blockquote>





	treasure maps fallen trees

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 is set after the S2 finale. Part 2 is set sometime around 3x07. Part 3 is set in early season 4. Part 4 is now. Part 5 is set in the future, 6 months or more. :)

1.

 

“Wake up,” John orders as the SUV comes to a stop; he’s been in the backseat with her since somewhere in Ohio when Shaw had threatened to put another bullet in her.

 

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she can feel her hands and feet again as the shock is starting to wear off. They’ve kept her sedated as best as they could, and she can still feel the drugs coursing through her body. She can't shake off the feeling of exhaustion, and the harshness of reality when she's conscious makes her restless.

 

The bullet wound might be stitched shut but she’s not; she’s spilling all over, her clothes ragged and her hair is tangling up until she can’t use it as a shield anymore.

 

“We don’t have all day,” Shaw says from the driver’s seat of the rental SUV.

 

“Miss Groves,” Harold says, doing his best to glance at the back from the passenger seat. 

 

She blinks at him, her eyes burning as she does, and she just tilts her head at him. It’s possible her voice still works but she doesn't chance it. 

 

“You guys better have a damn good reason for this,” adds a new voice as John lowers his window and takes the paperwork the woman is holding out. “I got a judge out of bed for this, so I better not regret it, Mr. _Wren_.”

 

“You won’t, Carter,” John offers as he takes the papers.

 

They pull in front of the institution, and Root's seen enough of them to know exactly what's happening. Silence has been the rule in the SUV more often than not, but this time it's heavier, the three other occupants having a silence conversation about her fate. Her eyes feel heavy, but she fights the drowsiness - much like she fights the resignation that began in her mind the moment she walked into that empty facility. They have to sedate her again to remove her from the car, Shaw's expert hands driving the needle into Root's neck.

 

(Later, at some point, she will realize that Shaw’s scent works almost as well as the sedative, this sensory wave that washes over her.)

 

She wakes in her new room (her cell), and begins plotting her escape.

 

 

2.

 

She wakes up to the sound of the cage being opened; it’s faint and distant but most sounds are these days. The sunlight is a warm orange as the sun sets, and she barely remembers falling asleep for a nap.

 

“Where’s Harry?” she inquires as she sits up in her cot. The dog follows the man into the cage, and Bear takes a spot by her, his eyes glued to her movements.

 

“Not here,” is John’s curt reply delivered in his usual tone. 

 

“So you don’t know either?” Root pushes; her world has been reduced to these three people for the time being; the cop is sometimes the exception. 

 

Getting a rise out of Shaw is rather easy, not to mention enjoyable, and… stimulating. Shaw doesn’t back down, toe to toe with Root’s bitter teasing— Root might like it a little too much.

 

Harold is still fun, mostly because she can alternate between engaging him intellectually and shocking him.

 

But the lug… he’s a variable Root’s still figuring out. “Does he do this often? Keep secrets from you? There’s a book here somewhere that discusses healthy relationships,” she adds, letting her fingers slide over the hardcovers.

 

John doesn’t take the bait as he sets the styrofoam containers on the table. Still nothing but plastic cutlery for her, she notices.

 

“Gonna need that cut,” she points at a piece of steak. “I prefer very small slices, you know?”

 

John glares at her for a second before pulling a utility knife out of his pocket; it’s a mess and Root enjoys watching it. Sure, she kidnapped two-thirds of their team and can’t reasonably be trusted with a sharp steak knife, but _still_.

 

“Where is Shaw?” she says, letting the words spill out. She struck out - well, kinda - on the Harold/John front, and she wants to tests these waters; wants to see what makes John tick.

 

“Don’t know, don’t care,” he adds. His reaction is neutral, but she’s pretty sure Reese has a full dance card and Shaw’s name is not on it.

 

Once the steak is cut into various small slices, brownish stains all over John’s dress shirt, she sighs dramatically. “Actually, I just remembered I’m trying to give vegetarianism a try, one of those new year resolutions.”

 

“It’s November,” he points out.

 

“I’ve been _busy,_ ” she adds with a scoff. “I’m sure Bear will appreciate your hard work, won’t you boy?”

 

(Befriending the dog first is probably one of the only truly good ideas she’s had in her life.)

 

 

3.

 

The sound of a phone ringing makes Root sit up in bed, her eyes struggling to recognize her current environment. 

 

It’s a dingy motel room in rural Idaho that smells like wet dog; Root considers asking The Machine to run another search for empty houses in the area, but any contact with The Machine endangers them. She’s even considering breaking in somewhere and just putting the occupants in a basement somewhere so she can sleep without that awful creeping feeling on her skin. 

 

(She wouldn’t _hurt_ them or anything, at least nothing bad. She’s changed. Maybe gagging them for a few hours so she could get a good night’s sleep, she doubts even _Harold_ would disapprove of that.)

 

“Hello?” Root says when she finds her cellphone in the mountain of blankets.

 

“How can we—?” John’s voice gets interrupted by gunfire and she hears tires screeching against the asphalt. “Okay, I kind of need both hands to drive us out of here, talk to Shaw,” John offers before Shaw comes on the line.

 

“Root?” She asks breathlessly, and Root finds it rather easy to picture the woman in her mind, stray strands of hair flying, cheeks flushed from the adrenaline, smelling of gunpowder.

 

“How do you defuse a bomb with a long range cellular detonator?” Shaw asks once there’s a break in the latest round of gunfire. “We’ve tried everything. They used single colored wires, and rigged the casing.”

 

“What kind of phone?” Root knows there’s not much time to find a faraday cage and she has no idea of the size of the bomb; instead she focuses on cutting communication to it. 

 

Shaw breathes directly into the phone as she tries to get the info. “Some Nokia…  3310?”

 

“How long?” Root inquires.

 

“Four minutes and counting,” Shaw offers.

 

“What are you wearing, Shaw?” Root asks, letting her voice go into full leer mode.

 

“Root, we don’t have time for this,” Shaw admonishes, followed by a spray of gunfire that has Root’s good ear ringing thousands of miles away.

 

“Four minutes is plenty of time for me,” Root assures. “But we’ll have to save the show and tell for later. Are you wearing anything with bobby pins or safety pins?”

 

“We are not in the 40s, so no, I am not,” Shaw points out. “Will a paper clip do the trick?”

 

Root considers asking who carries a paper clip but not a bobby pin, but instead she just walks Shaw through removing the SIM card from the device.

 

“The NYPD bomb squad can take it from here,” Root hears John’s voice in the background.

 

“That worked,” Shaw adds. Root leans back on the hotel room bed, stares at the popcorn ceiling.

 

“So… what _are_ you wearing, Shaw?” Root asks with a smirk.

 

“Good night, Root,” Shaw replies before Root hears nothing but a dial tone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. 

 

She wakes up with a start, this crick in her neck and the butt of one of her guns digging into her ribs; John doesn’t even flinch at the movement in his peripheral vision.

 

(He did at first, this minuscule tension that anyone else might have missed, but he stopped somewhere or sometime along the way of the world’s most frustrating scavenger hunt.)

 

“Did I miss anything?” She asks as she reaches for the travel mug in the cupholder; there’s no warmth left to the coffee but it still washes the taste of sleep from her mouth.

 

She doesn’t notice her own heartbeat echoing in her ears at first; her blood pumps through her body in a rush and her extremities feel cold and she realizes what’s happened. Her left shoulder feels warm, as if someone shook her awake - like John snapped her out of the nightmare.

 

The Machine would jolt her out of the worst of the dreams, high pitched whirring in her ear or her cell phone alarm conveniently going off hours before she’d programmed it to. But She didn’t wake Root up this time; She hasn’t said or done much as of late, other than the occasional reminder that they are chasing a cold trail, the tone of disappointment coming across whichever media She chose to use for communication, loud and clear.

 

John shakes his head as he hands her a bottle of water and holds out his hand for her mug; he doesn’t spare her a glance through the motions, just stares at the warehouse they’ve been staking out without a word. She doesn’t expect him to talk or ask questions; he is almost quieter than Her these days, long stretches of silence and watching and waiting. 

 

It’s not that she minds the quiet, but she wishes there was something to drown out the loudest of her thoughts these days.

 

 

5.

 

 

“Hello?” Root grunts into the phone when it goes off at 3am.

 

“Root?!” John’s voice is confused and she blinks as she realizes she’s holding Sameen’s phone.

 

“I— we— can she call you back later?” she asks as Sameen stirs next to her.

 

“This never happened,” John warns her before the call ends with a click.

 

Root doesn’t argue with that; whatever… truce she and John had while Sameen was gone is up in the air at this point. It’s fairly obvious they’re not going back to their old animosity, but they’re also not _friends_ ; at least she doesn’t think so, but it’s not as if she’s had a lot of friendships to compare this to. 

 

(Root doesn’t know if there’s a word for the person who puts the pin back in the grenade you’re holding without saying a single word. She almost bled out on the cold hard ground a few months before, Reese’s hand the only thing keeping her alive; she’d told him to go, to leave her, but he only said Shaw would kill him when she came back.)

 

“Who was that?” Sameen asks with a sleepy voice as she sits up; it’s Oktoberfest in Germany and there are still sounds from the streets filtering into the hotel suite.

 

“It can wait,” Root offers.

 

“ _Root_ ,” Sameen adds until Root gives up the information; time hasn’t changed her much at all. “I should go to my room.”

 

“What do you know about unstable elements?” Root asks, laying back on her side. Honestly she was surprised Sameen hadn’t left hours before, but Root is not about to question it as the sheets bunch around the other woman’s hips.

 

“You seriously have the weirdest pillow talk,” Sameen points out, still sitting up on the bed, the expanse of her back marked by scars that Root likes to count sometimes.

 

“We’re breaking into one of the most advanced nuclear laboratories in the world… I just want to make sure you’re up to speed,” Root points out.

 

“I know my stuff, okay?” Sameen offers as Root’s hand begins to stroke the skin of her back, knuckles brushing against each vertebrae. “But I guess it can’t hurt to go over it one more time.”

 

Root stares in awe as Sameen’s teeth scrape against Root’s shoulder.

 

(Sameen’s hotel room goes unused the entire trip.)

 

 


End file.
